


Yes

by msred



Series: Starting Over [17]
Category: Chris Evans (actor) - Fandom
Genre: Dancing, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 11:57:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20545784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msred/pseuds/msred
Summary: Until that point, I’d almost, somehow, forgotten that Chris was standing right behind me. Chalk it up to public humiliation. “Uh. No. He didn’t do anything to you, don’t punish him.”Chris stepped closer to me and rested his hand on the small of my back. “Hey, I don’t consider dancing with my girlfriend punishment.”





	Yes

**Author's Note:**

> This one takes place just a few hours before "Dreaming" (and about a month after "New Meets Old").

_ 14 months together (April, Year 3) _

I laughed as I watched Brody and a couple of my other former students finish the song-and-dance routine I’d kind of bullied them into performing at Brody’s going away party. Someone had mentioned their high school show choir days, which had, of course, intrigued Chris. So, I’d taken over control of the bluetooth speaker and gone into my phone’s library and pulled up a song that had been part of their show Brody’s senior year. They’d protested at first, Brody and the other young man and two young women at the party who’d all been a part of that show, but I’d pulled the ‘mom card’ and managed to guilt them into performing. The performance wasn’t great; it had been four years since the last time they’d even thought about the choreography, and probably since they’d heard the song, in most of their cases. But, it was entertaining, and by the end of the song, after three false-starts, they could at least make it all the way through without Brody and his lanky six-foot-four frame tripping over anything, or anyone.

Brody had graduated a semester early from the University of Virginia back in December, which came as a surprise to absolutely no one. He’d taken a month or so off, then, when his former classmates were beginning to study for midterms, he’d started the search for his first ‘real’ job. By mid-March, he’d landed a job in Washington state, so in early April, the second weekend of most of his friends’ spring breaks, his family had thrown a going-away party. His mom had called me about a week before the planned party and invited me and, in a tone that told me she was trying very hard not to seem like she was prying into my personal life, said that I was more than welcome to bring Chris along. Chris had a particular affection for Brody, having met him a few times at theatre events and other ‘family’ parties. On top of that, we both gave him a fair amount of credit for waking me up and helping me realize that I wasn’t doing anyone any favors by pretending that my feelings for Chris were just friendship in the months - a full year, actually - after my husband died. So, even though we already had plans for me to fly out to California for my own spring break that same weekend, we bumped my ticket back by a couple days and Chris bought his own roundtrip ticket so that he flew into Virginia the day before Brody’s party and back out to L.A. on the same flight I was on.

I was so distracted by the kids’ little show that I didn’t stop the music before it shuffled to the next song. Julie, one of the girls from that first group of kids I’d unofficially adopted, caught onto the next song before anyone else did. “Umm, Mom, what  _ is  _ this? And  _ how _ did we get here from Usher?”

“Hey! It’s on shuffle.” I shot her an indignant look. “And this is George Strait. Don’t knock George Strait.”

Some of the other kids at the party groaned, but the few remaining ‘real’ adults didn’t seem to mind at all. When I went to grab my phone off the table I’d set it on near the speaker, Brody lunged at me. “Now wait a second, we had to dance for you, I mean, it’s only fair …” he trailed off and grinned at me, the other three show choir kids coming up behind him and the other partygoers, especially my other former students, beginning to pay attention.

“Uhhhh, excuse me?”

“Come on. We danced. Your turn.”

“Brody. My darling. My first-born child. This is not a dancing song.”

“Sure it is,” he countered, “just a different kind of dancing.”

Until that point, I’d almost, somehow, forgotten that Chris was standing right behind me. Chalk it up to public humiliation. “Uh. No. He didn’t do anything to you, don’t punish him.”

Chris stepped closer to me and rested his hand on the small of my back. “Hey, I don’t consider dancing with my girlfriend punishment.”

“You’re not helping,” I told him through gritted teeth, but when I turned to look at him over my shoulder I saw him shooting a wink Brody’s way. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back, a groan escaping my throat. “I’m going to have to do this, aren’t I?”

Chris’s hand slid across my lower back and before I had time to come up with any more excuses it was held out in front of me, palm up and waiting. “I think you owe them.”

I tried to glare at him, but the way he looked back at me was so sweet, and sincere, and full of love, even as his eyes danced and teased. So, I glared at Brody instead. “Fine. Let’s go.”

“Wait!” Brody stopped us. “Julie, start the song over.” Julie ran, giggling, to pick up my phone and restarted the song from the music player on the lock screen. “Okay,” Brody stepped aside and swept one hand out in front of him, bowing a little as he did, “now you can start.”

Chris wiggled the fingers of the hand that was still in front of me, beckoning me, until I dropped my hand into his. He walked me to the three steps leading up onto the house’s back deck then let go of my hand and crooked his arm in front of me. When I slid my hand into the crook of his elbow he grinned down at me then walked me up the stairs, tucked me into him with that same arm around my back, and held his left hand out beside my shoulder for me to nestle my own right hand into. We began to step in time to the music, him leading us in a slow circle, at about the same time that the first verse started and I rested my burning cheek against his chest. When the song began to approach the end of the first verse and George sang, “ _ From here on after / Let's stay the way we are right now _ ,” he squeezed my hand quickly, twice. I pulled back just enough to look up at his face, and he looked down at me completely seriously and mouthed along with the song. ‘ _ And share all the love and laughter / That a lifetime will allow.’ _

“You know this song?” I asked him quietly.

“Sure,” he smiled softly back.

“You’re not really a …” I shrugged one shoulder, “ _ country  _ guy.”

“No,” he pressed his lips to my forehead, “I’m just a ‘good music’ guy. George Strait is good music. Besides, I mean, does it  _ get  _ any more romantic than this?” He pulled me in a little tighter and I just kind of stared back up at him.

I didn’t mean to do it - I  _ never  _ sang in public - but when the second verse started, I sang quietly along, my eyes never leaving his face. “ _ You will always be the miracle / That makes my life complete.”  _ It was so, so cheesy, but I meant every word. How could I not, after the impact he’d had on my life over the past almost two years? And besides, we were kind of cheesy. As if to prove my point, he picked up the next line, and the one after that, and the full chorus after that, singing down to me as if the backyard were empty, or we were back in my own living room. And when the final verse started, Strait promising to keep his partner warm on stormy days, Chris broke his so-far impeccable dancing frame to bring his hands up to cup both sides of my jaw and dropped his forehead to mine. He didn’t miss a word.

At one point, I had to tighten my grip on his hips and close my eyes because it was all too much - the intimacy, the love that made my heart almost hurt, the joy I really didn’t expect to feel again. As the last notes of the song began to play I felt him start to pull back, sliding his hands down my neck then over my shoulders and finally down to grip my hands, and I opened my eyes. But he wasn’t pulling back, he was kneeling down,.

“What are you doing?” My voice was a little strangled in my throat as I looked down at him in front of me on one knee.

“Throwing my plans out the fucking window, apparently. I don’t even have the ring. I do  _ have  _ a ring, but it’s in California, because I thought I’d be going back there before I actually, ya know, did this.”

“Chris -” My heart beat too fast and I couldn’t catch my breath and my throat stung with the effort of not crying. I vaguely registered that we still had an audience, and that Julie had my phone pointing back at us.

“I  _ do  _ have a plan, too. Or the beginnings of one. That’s what I was waiting for, I wanted to make sure it was perfect - the grand gesture, the surprise, all that. But we’re here, and we’re dancing,” he continued to hold my right hand with his left one, but his right gestured and cut through the air between us, “and George Strait is singing everything I feel about you, and we’re surrounded by people who love you almost as much as I do and this just feels more right than any elaborate plan I would come up with. Wait, what are  _ you  _ doing?” He stopped talking - rambling, really - to watch me come down to my own knees in front of him.

“Either we both kneel or no one does. We’re even, you and me.” His similar statement to me almost a year before, in the midst of our first fight, had always stuck with me because it seemed to so perfectly encompass who he was and the lovely way he viewed things.

“That was a very, very different situation.” That man and his memory. I knew why I remembered it, it surprised me that he did.

“I know. Just like I’m pretty sure I know exactly what’s happening here. And I don’t want it to happen with me looking down at you. I want us to be equal, partners, like we are in everything else.” He dropped the knee that he’d kept up so that his weight was balanced on both knees and not just one. He brought his right hand back to my left one then twisted both hands around until he could thread his fingers between mine, the insides of our forearms running the length of one another.

“God. You are something else.” He squeezed my hands, “Baby, I want everything with you. I want to spend the rest of my life doing things for you, for us, and I want you by my side for everything I do. Our path so far, from the way we met to our courtship and everything else leading to this moment, hasn’t been the most traditional, I know that. But I also know that I really, really don’t want this journey to ever end, because so far, everything with you has been better than it ever was without you, and I can’t wait to see what that means for the rest of my life. So, with no plan, and no ring in hand, I’m asking you, please, to ignore every bit of common sense in that beautiful brain of yours and say that you will marry me.”

“Christopher Robert Evans, there is absolutely nothing in this world that would make me happier than to spend the rest of my life being surprised by you.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

He brought his hands around his own back until my arms wrapped around him then released my fingers to bring his hands to my face. As he pulled me in and kissed me, firm and insistent but sweet, and appropriate for our audience, I fisted my hands around his t-shirt at the small of his back. I needed something, anything to hold onto; it was like the earth was spinning too fast and off its axis. I’ve read that a proposal should never be truly unexpected, because that means both parties aren’t on the same page. I had maybe never been more surprised by anything in my life, and yet, once it had happened, I couldn’t imagine anything feeling more right, more like it was exactly what was supposed to happen.

After a couple of seconds of quiet peacefulness in which I relished in the feel of his lips against mine and his scent surrounding me, the air around us erupted with cheers. The other “real” adults stood back, some clapping lightly or clasping their hands in front of their chests and all smiling kindly at us, but my kids launched themselves at us. By the time we were on our feet, his arm wrapped around my shoulders, tucking me into his side, we were completely surrounded. Julie shoved my phone into my hand then threw her arms around me, actually pulling me away from Chris. 

“Oh my god, Mom, this is amazing. I’m so happy for you. And I got all of it, like, almost from the beginning of the song, on your phone.”

“Thank you, my sweet girl.” She released me and let me pull back, but wrapped both of her arms around one of mine and laid her head on my shoulder. 

“No one deserves this more than you.”

I didn’t know about that, but before I had a chance to tell her so, Chris was grabbing my other hand, the left one, and lifting it to his lips. He kissed the base of my ring finger and asked me, loudly enough for all the kids to be able to hear as well, “Do you want to see your ring? I have a picture on my phone, you’ll just have to imagine your hand and not my niece’s tiny one.” 

I laughed at that last part. Of course his family was in on the secret. “No, thank you.”

“No?” He’d already let go of my hand and was reaching into his pocket for said phone.

Julie yanked the arm she was hugging so hard that I actually reached up to rub my shoulder with my free hand. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

I jabbed at her ribs with my elbow and she released me. I looked up at Chris as I answered her question. “I wanna wait. I want to see it for the first time when he puts it on my finger.” He grinned a small smile and winked at me, moving to put his phone back into his pocket.

“Okay, well,” Erin, another of my kids, pushed her way in front of Brody to speak up, “ _ I  _ want to see it.”

“Same,” Julie added.

Chris laughed. “You okay with that?”

“Yeah, go for it, I’m just gonna,” I made a clicking noise in the back of my throat and jabbed my thumb over my shoulder, “go stand over there.” He leaned down to kiss my cheek before I stepped away.

As Chris pulled his phone back out and swiped his thumb over the screen, most of the kids and even a few of the adults came to crowd around him. Brody, though, came to stand with me. I laughed up at him. “No interest in the ring? Not a romantic, huh?”

“Come on, you know me better than that.” He leaned over to bump my shoulder with his bicep. Actually, I did. I’d seen him use his senior showcase for chorus as an opportunity to serenade his girlfriend of two years with a medley of Elvis songs. For a guy his age, he was actually kind of a hopeless romantic. He looked down at me for a couple of seconds, clearly trying not to smile. “I’ve already seen it.”

I had to make a concentrated effort not to shriek at him. “What?”

“When you guys first got here. You were talking to my mom, and he said he wasn’t planning on asking anyone’s permission, but he did want your most important people to know. He told your grandparents and your best friend and her husband too, when you guys were in Kentucky.”

“That was almost a month ago.”

“Yep.”

I looked back over at Chris -  _ my fiance  _ \- still surrounded by some of the other people I loved most in the world and gamely watching them pass his phone around between them. The breath was knocked out of me a little bit. I knew how incredibly happy I’d been with him -  _ because  _ of him - over the last year and a half or so, and I’d always hoped I made him even a fraction as happy. I would never have thought, though, to go on a limb and guess that he’d started planning the rest of our lives together after just over a year of officially dating. It wasn’t because I didn’t want that, but because I didn’t want to let myself believe, to hope, that he felt as strongly about me as I did about him. Just as I was on the verge of overthinking, he looked across the heads between us and widened his eyes at me, lifting his eyebrows and grinning a wide, toothy grin. I released the tension I’d started holding in and dropped my shoulders away from my ears. Brody’s mom said something to him and he turned to answer her, and I looked back over at Brody.

“I’m sorry we hijacked your party,” I looked up at him apologetically.

He reached for me and dropped an arm over my shoulders. “You kiddin’ me? This is awesome. Good thing I made you dance, huh?” I didn’t even look up at him as I reached over to smack him on the stomach and he laughed. “Come on, I get to take a little bit of credit here, I think.”

“I’m leaving here tonight engaged to the second love of my life; I’m the luckiest, most blessed woman alive. I don’t care  _ who  _ takes the credit.”

Brody chuckled, a heavy exhale through his nose. “Fair enough.”

It was several more minutes of excitement and fawning, that, I have to be honest, made me quite impatient to have that ring on my finger, before Chris finally extricated himself from the crowd around him to come stand in front of me. “You sure you don’t want to see it?” He waved his darkened phone in front of my face.

“No, of course I’m not sure. But please don’t show me.” He laughed at me and wound his arms around my shoulders, dropping a kiss to the top of my head. 

“You ready to get out of here?” His lips moved across the top of my head as he spoke down into my hair. “I kind of want to get my fiance home and, uh, celebrate our engagement.”

“Mmm,” I hummed into his chest, “that sounds amazing.”

**Author's Note:**

> All pieces in this collection will be an anthology of connected one-shots that exist within the same universe; and the officially no longer follow chronological order. They may eventually be reorganized into novel-format, but that would be quite a way down the road.


End file.
